Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.18
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
Q. Answer my question. Is it likely that if he is a Jewish
writer he is probably not going to be disposed to me in a
very friendly way initially until he gets to know me, is
that correct?
A. No, it seems to be -- I do not accept that, no.
. P-159
Q. "Moreover, in the course of his conversation with
Mr Rosenbaum, Irving admitted", you say, "of some
Holocaust deniers 'that there are certain organizations
that propagate these theories which are cracked
anti-Semites'". Does that show that I am a great admirer
of these organizations?
A. Well, I do not know. You do not say, or Rosenbaum does
not say, what organizations you are referring to, so it is
impossible to guess.
Q. Well, you would not expect a Holocaust denier like David
Irving roundly to dismiss other organizations of Holocaust
deniers as "cracked anti-Semites"?
A. Do you do not mention what those organizations are. It
would be more plausible, more plausible if you did.
Q. Well, what organizations do you think I was talking about
there.
A. I really ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why do you not put to the witness which
organizations you...
MR IRVING: My Lord, that was going to be the follow up
question when he answered, "No, I do not know which ones"
and I was going to say could it possibly be -- would I
have been talking about the Institute of Historical
Review?
A. You do not mention them.
Q. Yes. Would I have been talking ----
. P-160
A. It is impossible to tell who you are talking about.
Q. Are you surprised to hear somebody ----
A. As I say here, you say this without actually saying who
you meant by this or what kind of damage or harm you
are
referring to ----
Q. Does it surprise you to hear that ----
A. --- the damage done to you.
Q. --- I regard a number of these Holocaust deniers as
"cracked anti-Semites"?
A. I have not read anything that you have written that
refers
specifically to any specific individual or
organization as
being "cracked anti-Semites", only these very, very
general statements which really have very little value
because they have no precision, no reference.
Q. They have no precision, but this is as represented by
a
neutral observer who has spoken to a lot of authors,
and
do you accept that -- are you surprised to read in a
book
that I have described Holocaust deniers as "cracked
anti-Semites"?
A. I have -- some Holocaust deniers. What you say,
"there
are certain organizations that propagate these
theories
which are cracked anti-Semites" but it is impossible
to
say who you are referring to.
Q. Now, Rosenbaum's book was reviewed, thank goodness, by
Norman Stone who pointed out that Rosenbaum is yet
another
of these ignorant, negligent reviewers whom have met
. P-161
before, is that is correct; that he had not done his
homework and he did not know enough to write such a
book
properly? Is that the next paragraph's burden, 3.6.2?
A. Let me just have a look. He says that stone was
critical
of Rosenbaum. He said he could not follow subjects,
he
had misunderstood one of books he was writing about.
That
is certainly the case, yes. It is a critical review.
Q. Yes. So why did you mention the Rosenbaum book
because
you do accept that there are serious authors out there
who
accept that I am not a Holocaust denier and that I do
have
differentiated views and that I regard Holocaust
deniers
as "crack pots" and you could not get passed this?
A. Nobody says that you regard Holocaust deniers as crack
pots. What you say is that there are certain
organizations, unnamed, that propagate these theories
which are cracked anti-Semites. You do not say that
all
Holocaust deniers are crack pots.
Q. Does it matter what the name of the organization is if
I
just refer to Holocaust ----
A. Yes, of course it does because this is so vague it is
completely meaningless. It is just -- I mean, one
could
read this as just some kind of alibi. It has no
reference
at all. It is a meaningless statement unless you
actually
say who you are talking about.
Q. I could hardly be more specific.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Put to him the organizations that you
regard
. P-162
as consisting of cracked anti-Semites. Is the IHR one
of
them?
MR IRVING: I did, my Lord, and he waffled. We did not get
a
clear answer.
A. Well, let me say ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So your case is -- I want to be clear
about
this -- you do regard the IHR as an organization
consisting of cracked anti-Semites, is that your case?
MR IRVING: I think that the correct thing to say there is
that
it consists of some elements which are cracked
anti-Semites. I do not think I would wish to brand an
entire organization. As far as I know, some of the
officers of that organization, I would regard them as
cracked anti-Semites. That is the point I wanted to
make
plain in my discussion with Mr Rosenbaum, but I
would respectfully submit ----
MR RAMPTON: I would like to know who those people are. It
has
some bearing on what is to come.
MR IRVING: Your time will come in cross-examination,
Mr Rampton, to ask that question, and it would be
helpful
if you did not interrupt. I would say that ----
MR RAMPTON: Perhaps it would have more value, my Lord, if
it
came directly now, otherwise we may find a list
composed
later.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if I may say so, Mr Rampton, since
Mr Irving has taken the point that he does not want to
say
. P-163
at this stage in the course of his cross-examination
of
Professor Evans, I think he is entitled to say that.
MR RAMPTON: All right.
MR IRVING: And I would respectfully submit ----
A. However, Mr Irving, if you were, of course -- if you
do
think that the certain organizations that propagate
these
theories and certain organizations, not individuals,
which
are cracked anti-Semites and if the Institute of
Historical Review is an organization which is cracked
anti-Semites, then it is extraordinary that you should
have spoken so regularly at their meetings in the
course
of the 1990s.
Q. Do you consider this view, as you just stated,
expressed
to Mr Rosenbaum, as a kind of alibi that I just use to
people like him?
A. Well, in its vagueness, it sounds rather like that to
me,
but I am speculating there. I am simply quoting your
statements here.
Q. Is this the only occasion when I have expressed such a
view, to your knowledge, having had complete access to
all
my papers?
A. I think there is one other occasion, but I cannot
recall
exactly where it is.
Q. Can I suggest you look at page 90 of my bundle,
please?
A. Ah, yes.
Q. A letter to "Dear Connie" -- does your Lordship have
it?
. P-164
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, when you say your bundle, do you
mean
F?
MR IRVING: Bundle F, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: 90, that is a letter.
MR IRVING: "Dear Connie""?
A. Yes, I have this, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Dear Miss Kadashka" I have got at page
90.
MR IRVING: No, it has to be "Dear Connie".
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mine is 89, but it does not matter.
MR IRVING: Is this letter dated June 24th 1988?
A. It is, yes.
Q. Is this about two months after I read the Leuchter
report,
in other words, two months after the Zundel conference
--
the Zundel trial?
A. The trial.
Q. Yes.
A. You will have to remind.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right. Take it from me.
A. Is that right? OK.
MR IRVING: Can I read to you the final paragraph or the
bits
thereof? First of all, looking at the address at the
bottom, am I writing to my publishers, William Morrow
&
Company in New York ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- who published the Goring biography. "I have been
invited to speak as a guest speaker at a right wing
. P-165
function in Los Angeles next February. They have
offered
a substantial fee and all my expenses and until now I
have
adopted a policy of never refusing an invitation if
the
organizers meet my terms, namely free speech and fat
fee.
On this occasion I intend to give the audience a piece
of
my mind about some of their more lunatic views". Does
it
say that?
A. It does indeed, yes.
Q. So, in other words, I do not just express views about
crack pot anti-Semites and crack pot ideas or whatever
as
an alibi, but on the evidence of this letter (which
I found in the early hours of this morning by chance)
on
quite a few occasions I have expressed robust views
about
people I associate with?
A. This, Mr Irving, is not evidence of what you actually
said
at this meeting, if you indeed went to it. It is
simply a
letter to a publisher, obviously. You do not say what
their lunatic views are and there is no evidence here
that
you have gave them a piece of mind.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who was the right-wing organization
holding a
meeting in?
MR IRVING: That was the IHR, my Lord. That was precisely
this
body, the Institute of Historical Review, who at that
time
were under different management, if I can put it like
that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the lunatic views attached to the old
. P-166
management, not to the present regime, is that it?
MR IRVING: I shall be submitting to your Lordship at the
proper occasion that as the years passed, I tried to
persuade them to adopt a more serious profile, to
invite
respected historians as well as more unorthodox
revisionist historians and try to straighten their act
out, if I can put it like that. There is
correspondence
----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you did have an association that
enabled
you to bring that sort of pressure to bear, did you?
MR IRVING: Oh, yes. They looked to me. They were
constantly
wooing me and I wrote them letters saying, "In my
view,
you should do this and you should do that", and I am
sure
they got similar advice from other people.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much.
MR IRVING: Thank you. So do you accept that on the basis
of
those two letters I had a robust attitude towards the
Institute which indicated I was in no manner
travelling in
their tow or in their wake?
A. Sorry, what is the other letter?
Q. Well, on the basis of the Ron Rosenbaum ----
A. Ah, yes, the interview.
Q. --- matter and this letter.
A. I have to say that on the basis of having read your
speeches or articles in the Institute and its Journal
that
you did come to them in the 80s for the first time
that
. P-167
you went to speak at the Institute with what seems to
me
like a certain apprehension of the fact that your
views
would differ somewhat from theirs, but this
disappears, in
my view, entirely in the 1990s when you were a regular
attender at their conferences and a regular speaker.
Q. At their conferences I regularly rubbed their noses in
what actually happened in the Holocaust and that I
read
out the Bruns' interrogation report in all its gory
detail
of the shootings on the Eastern Front, and that I was
held
up to criticism by some of their members for doing
this?
A. You read out parts of the Bruns' report, excluding the
reference to Hitler's order which we went through
sometime
ago in this trial. You have a very selective version
of
it. I think you did say at the beginning of this
trial
you had not actually read it out before.
I do not deny that there were some arguments
in
discussion (as there always is in discussions) after
your
speeches, but in the 1990s I think you were purveying
the
same views as they had on the whole. There were some
minor differences between yourself, in particular,
Professor Faurisson, but your speeches to the
Institute of
Historical Review did not meet with jeers and cat
calls,
as I recall.
Q. They did not meet with jeers and cat calls. Do you
believe that a body like the Institute of Revisionist
Historians, or whatever they call themselves, performs
any
. P-168
useful function at all?
A. No.

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.